New Settlement Sites Declared 'Closed Military Zones'

The IDF has declared five areas in Judea and Samaria to be “closed military zones” in a bid to prevent the latest Land of Israel settlement effort.

By Ezra HaLevi

First Publish: 12/9/2007, 6:37 AM

The IDF has declared five areas in Judea and Samaria to be “closed military zones” in a bid to prevent the latest Land of Israel settlement effort.

“The security establishment has recently received information indicating the intentions of various bodies to reach various points in Judea and Samaria with the aim of settling them this Sunday,” a statement said. In fact, announcements detailing the time and location of each new settlement site were placed in newspapers and on bulletin boards in big cities and throughout Judea and Samaria. “The IDF and Israel Police stress, in an unequivocal manner, that a permit was not granted to this event, and that the relevant bodies have no intention of authorizing it.”

Accompanying the statement is a threat to arrest and file criminal charges against anyone trying to settle the Land of Israel at these spots or even transport people there.

Similar threats have been issued on the eve of dozens of past settlement attempts to Homesh, Givat HaEitam and other hilltop communities. The results on the ground have varied from active opposition by security forces to tacit approval and the securing of such events after the fact.

The plans are being coordinated between the Land of Israel Faithful, Youth for Eretz Yisrael, Women in Green and the local grassroots action committees.

“At a time when internal and external enemies are trying to choke us behind fences and walls, daring to tell us that we are not allowed to expand and build in our own land, the most necessary answer is to defy those anti-Semitic decrees by settling the hills of Judea and Samaria,” a communiqué issued by the activists reads. “That is the best way we can show the world that the Jewish people will not agree to give up its land.”